Back in my youth in Gippsland, I owned five very nice Jersey cows. Their dam was registered as pure bred with the Australian Jersey Society whose slogan is, “If it’s not a Jersey, it’s just a cow!”
Unfortunately in this case, my father, who liked nice looking animals, had bought the cow ‘Stylish Lotus’ for her looks and she turned out to be a ‘backfatter.’ Preserving her own condition, she put all her nutrition into her own body. 'Lotie’ was a very poor milker, but her progeny were very good.
I milked one cow for the house and with the milk from the others, I raised calves. They looked so fat and healthy that no one believed they were bucket fed poddys. It was thought they were still being fed by their mothers. The secret formula was just under half a bucket of a mixture of one third rich full cream milk and two thirds water, twice daily.
Disaster struck when two cows slipped their calves prematurely. The local Vet said there was a chance that it could have been brucellosis, but they hadn’t been off the property to become infected.
Late one afternoon, I was surprised to find a man wandering happily around amongst my cows with a syringe in his hand! He was a young Government Vet who had been vaccinating the local dairy herds with Strain 19 for the prevention of brucellosis and had some left over. There was no need to catch or confine the cows. They liked him and were happy to stand quietly while they were jabbed.
After that, I often found him in the paddock with the cows and would go down excitedly to ask, “What are they having today?” They were TB tested and vaccinated for the prevention of many diseases. Always with the left-over vaccines from his sessions with the surrounding dairy herds. He said, “It’s just in case they end up on a dairy farm.”
Fast forward a few years to when we were farming here in North-East Victoria. At this time there was a vet who was known by reputation to have a very short fuse. My brother was with him in the cattle yards when he was vaccinating the Hereford cows for the prevention of brucellosis. Brucellosis is a zoonotic disease and Strain 19 is a live vaccine that is not safe to handle.
An unfortunate train of events happened. A cow kicked the vet, he threw the glass syringe containing strain 19 onto the ground where it struck a stone and broke. My brother, not wanting a cow to step on it picked up the broken glass and it cut his hand
Sometime later, he became very ill and spent some weeks in the Alfred Hospital in Melbourne. The diagnosis was inconclusive, but I have always suspected a link to the strain 19 vaccine which causes undulant fever in humans.
Bev Morton
September 2024
This story was written as an opener to a Q & A session* on Brucellosis with group member John Archer, an Animal Welfare Officer from 1973 to 1996 during the Bovine Brucellosis Eradication Program. *'Stock and Land', Tuesday 3 September 2024.
Unfortunately in this case, my father, who liked nice looking animals, had bought the cow ‘Stylish Lotus’ for her looks and she turned out to be a ‘backfatter.’ Preserving her own condition, she put all her nutrition into her own body. 'Lotie’ was a very poor milker, but her progeny were very good.
I milked one cow for the house and with the milk from the others, I raised calves. They looked so fat and healthy that no one believed they were bucket fed poddys. It was thought they were still being fed by their mothers. The secret formula was just under half a bucket of a mixture of one third rich full cream milk and two thirds water, twice daily.
Disaster struck when two cows slipped their calves prematurely. The local Vet said there was a chance that it could have been brucellosis, but they hadn’t been off the property to become infected.
Late one afternoon, I was surprised to find a man wandering happily around amongst my cows with a syringe in his hand! He was a young Government Vet who had been vaccinating the local dairy herds with Strain 19 for the prevention of brucellosis and had some left over. There was no need to catch or confine the cows. They liked him and were happy to stand quietly while they were jabbed.
After that, I often found him in the paddock with the cows and would go down excitedly to ask, “What are they having today?” They were TB tested and vaccinated for the prevention of many diseases. Always with the left-over vaccines from his sessions with the surrounding dairy herds. He said, “It’s just in case they end up on a dairy farm.”
Fast forward a few years to when we were farming here in North-East Victoria. At this time there was a vet who was known by reputation to have a very short fuse. My brother was with him in the cattle yards when he was vaccinating the Hereford cows for the prevention of brucellosis. Brucellosis is a zoonotic disease and Strain 19 is a live vaccine that is not safe to handle.
An unfortunate train of events happened. A cow kicked the vet, he threw the glass syringe containing strain 19 onto the ground where it struck a stone and broke. My brother, not wanting a cow to step on it picked up the broken glass and it cut his hand
Sometime later, he became very ill and spent some weeks in the Alfred Hospital in Melbourne. The diagnosis was inconclusive, but I have always suspected a link to the strain 19 vaccine which causes undulant fever in humans.
Bev Morton
September 2024
This story was written as an opener to a Q & A session* on Brucellosis with group member John Archer, an Animal Welfare Officer from 1973 to 1996 during the Bovine Brucellosis Eradication Program. *'Stock and Land', Tuesday 3 September 2024.
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